NEW YORK TIMES        OCT. 6, 2014

New York Times describes in detail how disorganized local government response, demands for shipping fee payments, and perhaps even politics, have delayed unloading medical supplies sitting on the docks in Sierra Lenone.

By Adam Nossiter

Freetown, Sierra Leone -- A shipping container packed with protective gowns, gloves, stretchers, mattresses and other medical supplies needed to help fight Sierra Leone’s exploding Ebola epidemic has been...locked inside a dented container at the port since Aug. 9.

“We are still just hoping (!!!) — which sounds like BEGGING — that this container should be cleared,” one government official wrote in a frantic email to his superiors, weeks after the container arrived.

In many ways, the delay reflects what some in the growing ranks of international officials pouring into this nation to fight Ebola describe as a chaotic, disorganized government response to the epidemic.

TWO ARTICLES ON EBOLA CONCERNS DURING THE HAJJ

Al Jazeera                              Oct 5, 2014

Millions of pilgrims from all corners of the world traveled to Saudi Arabia for the start of the hajj in the past week, but some West African Muslims will not be able to take part in the sacred journey this year because of public health fears surrounding the Ebola outbreak.

Saudi Arabia issued a travel ban on citizens of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone as what it called a “precautionary measure,” saying the risk of Ebola infection is too high for travelers from those countries to be allowed entry now.

The Ebola-stricken countries each have sizable Muslim populations... Saudi authorities have turned down about 7,000 requests for hajj visas from the three countries because of Ebola concerns, according to the United Nations.

Updated with related story

Hospitalized French Nurse Released from Hospital.  ( Scroll Below)

-0-

LONDON, Reuters - By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent   Oct. 5, 2014

Scientists have used Ebola disease spread patterns and airline traffic data to predict a 75 percent chance the virus could be imported to France by October 24, and a 50 percent chance it could hit Britain by that date.

Those numbers are based on air traffic remaining at full capacity. Assuming an 80 percent reduction in travel to reflect that many airlines are halting flights to affected regions, France's risk is still 25 percent, and Britain's is 15 percent.

"It's really a lottery," said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic - the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

WASHINGTON POST's  detailed front page account of how the Ebola epidemic got out of control in West Africa.  Oct. 5, 2014

     by Lena Sun, Bradly Dennis, Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach

The glow from a crematorium lights the sky as the bodies of people who died from Ebola are cremated last month in Monrovia

---Michel Du Cille, THE WASHINGTON POST

.... "The virus easily outran the plodding response. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, is responsible for coordinating international action in a crisis like this, but it has suffered budget cuts, has lost many of its brightest minds and was slow to sound a global alarm on Ebola. Not until Aug. 8, 4 1 ⁄ 2 months into the epidemic, did the organization declare a global emergency. Its Africa office, which oversees the region, initially did not welcome a robust role by the CDC in the response to the outbreak.